Hi Reader,

Before I started this portfolio-with-a-pipeline project, I didn't know that pinning a version was something anyone needed to do. Now, I know it's one of the things keeping my pipeline from breaking when a software version updates.

Two failure emails

The other morning I got a couple of emails saying that two of my scheduled tests had failed. As one does, I asked my robot minion (Claude Code) to find out why.

Neither test had actually run. Every workflow in my repo runs on a temporary machine that GitHub supplies, and GitHub Actions had an outage, so no machine ever picked up either job. The fix was to wait for the next scheduled run. So, no big deal.

Small interruption. Since this article is about learning something, this sponsor seemed appropriate!

Now, back to the article.

The notice next to the failures

Claude Code also pointed out a notice that GitHub had attached to every run: starting October 19, the "ubuntu-latest" label moves to Ubuntu 26.

Every workflow in my repo asked for ubuntu-latest. That label doesn't name a version. It asks for whatever GitHub calls the latest one. On October 19, my whole pipeline would have moved to a new operating system without a single change from me.

The screenshot tests are the ones I'd worry about. They compare a new screenshot against a saved one, and a different operating system can render fonts and spacing a little differently. A test could fail over a few pixels, and I'd spend a morning chasing a problem that was never in my content. No thank you!

Claude Code pinned every workflow to Ubuntu 24.04, the version they were already running on. The pin isn't permanent. At some point I'll try Ubuntu 26 on a separate branch, refresh any screenshots that change, and take the pin out. In fact, I told Claude Code to remind me in November so that I can test it out after the initial flurry of fixes and release pains are past.

Somebody used to do this for me

In my previous life, I was a technical writer at a company where an ops team handled this kind of thing. I never saw a runner label. If a build machine changed under me, then someone else whose job it was knew about it first and dealt with it. I never heard about it.

Owning the repo means I'm that someone now. It also means I can talk about the pros and cons of pinning a version with an engineer and actually contribute meaningfully to the conversation. It's incredibly empowering.

If Git and pipelines still feel like black magic, set up a project of your own and own it for a while. You'll run into things you never expected to learn about, and you'll be glad you did.

The full write-up, with links to the tests involved, is on my site: Version pinning used to be someone else's job.

If you want a portfolio backed by a working pipeline like this one, it's not as scary as it seems. You can do it, and I'll help. Book a call.

Diana Payton